


the storm and the shelter

by stag_von_simp



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Ferdinand Just. Deserves To Grieve, If so I'm sorry, M/M, Mentions of Minor Character Death???, Mostly Ferdie Overthinking, Romance, fluff?, he does that a lot, kind of, this may be ooc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21624544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stag_von_simp/pseuds/stag_von_simp
Summary: ferdinand's father is dead.  ferdinand's not certain he can handle it, but luckily, hubert can handle it for him.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	the storm and the shelter

**Author's Note:**

> this was inspired by that scene in the game where ferdinand's father is killed and ferdinand starts sobbing on the spot. yes, i like to make myself suffer. enjoy!! :D

there’s a sliver of ferdinand’s mind, scolding him because _everyone’s suffering the ill effects of this ridiculous, absolutely ludicrous war_ and _he’s not special, he doesn’t deserve to dwell on the ache more than anyone else, because honestly, he’s probably had it easy in the grand scheme of everything_ and every other cruel objection his weary head can generate.

and there’s a single bleeding patch throbbing in his skull like jupiter’s crimson ring of storms, telling him that _it’s over, stop mourning_ and _he has nothing to mourn anyway, he barely knows the man he’s mourning_. and he wishes that were half as silly as this blasted war is.

and he knows it’s unfounded and wrong, but it’s the middle of the night, and he’s got his head nestled to hubert’s chest, writhing to hold back an outburst that punches the muscles of his eyes with a pulsing drumbeat. and there are words, thousands of them, spilling onto his tongue like an avalanche, but he keeps them lodged in his mouth, even if doing so makes it hurt impossibly more.

he inches somehow closer to hubert, and hubert snakes an arm around his shoulders. “what’s bothering you now?” he asks, and ferdinand would tell him, but the hitch of annoyance that hooks hubert’s rasp gives him pause.

he nearly whimpers instead of answering. the second he pries his lips apart, it’s like every emotion that thunders through him topples onto his tongue at once.

he slams his lips defiantly shut and bats his head in a refusal.

“well, it’s obviously something,” hubert, never one for nonsense, points out. ferdinand slaps his eyes closed, wishing he could staple or sew his eyelids down forever, wishing that the hood of the flesh could forever stifle the pain muddled around him, in every shadow that dares blight the world.

_there’s pain everywhere. his isn’t special._

but it’s terribly late at night, and his heart stews in his chest, and he really, really misses his father.

why’d he have to die? and why did ferdinand feel so _fake_ in missing him?

but it’s true; he feels like an absolute fraud, grieving the father he scarcely knew at all. the man always bobbing in the ocean of his paperwork and ambitions, seconds away from getting yanked into their depths forever. just barely breaching the surface. barely breathing, as far as ferdinand knew. 

the man who stacked galaxies between himself and his son whose eyes had once been teeming with glitter and sunlight and _love._ the man who scrunched centuries and seasons and infinite dreams into the distance between the two of them. the man who made himself impossible for a scrabbling little kid to ever reach.

maybe his father really _hadn’t_ wanted a relationship with ferdinand. maybe all he really wanted was the time to scar his opinions on nobility and everything else that may or may not matter into ferdinand’s alarmingly tiny brain. that’s all he got–ferdinand was always _so convinced_ the canyon between them was an accident, a necessity–but now he’s pondering agony itself: maybe the trench, the canyon, the void of loneliness ferdinand spent his childhood trapped in, was what his father wanted for him.

and suddenly, ferdinand’s mind ticks like a bomb. bound to burst. bound to gnaw his skull to shards of useless bone. bound to string his very life in tatters on the floor around him.

bound to devastate.

except ferdinand is already devastated.

hubert jerks beneath him, and ferdinand startles like a young colt, bucking into a sitting position in the bed of his lover. 

his vision spirals, shadows scribbled into the corners of his eyes, and he can only faintly see his hands are trembling.

“ferdinand, just tell me what’s going on,” hubert growls, voice haggard, but then his arms crack back down onto ferdinand’s shoulders–ferdinand feels himself flinch, the sharp movement scooping half the strength from his rapidly numbing body–no, hubert’s arms are _around_ his shoulders, not _on_ them, silly ferdinand–and he’s smothered against hubert’s chest again, and hubert’s touch is gentle as it has ever been. “what is this about? it’s not like you to be so graciously silent.”

and ferdinand had thought he was hiding the breakdown quite well.

then again, ferdinand had incorrectly thought oh-so many things.

a sob shreds from his throat–the sound is strangled, and desperate, and sick, and _sad,_ and very much not noble of him. his face is pelted with a current of frozen stars, memories of faded bruises, bleached of color, tinged blue with ice and turmoil. he’s pinned to hubert’s chest, trapped in a cage constructed with bars molded by love, if such a cage could exist, and he’s gasping to breathe but the musty air in the bedroom rips through him with something like relief.

he’s roped back to earth now, thanks to hubert, who doesn’t say a word, who doesn’t ask a question because hubert _knows._

each sob wracks through him with a separate ripple of tremors, but he doesn’t care. he’s safe, enveloped in hubert’s chilly embrace. hubert feels like the dawn of autumn, splattered with an array of crisp colors even when he’s draped in black fabric and blacker night. and, when hubert hefts ferdinand’s lips to his and crumples the space between them with the effortlessness of aluminum between white-knuckled fingers, he tastes like autumn, too.

like the beginning of something brand new to ferdinand: love. _home._

and ferdinand knows tomorrow he’ll swab these feelings from his face, he knows the smile will flicker back on and he knows, tomorrow, the smile will probably be sincere. but for now, he purges the searing pain from his system and feels like he’s fluttering among the autumn leaves: soaring, and not falling until they hit the ground and can’t deny it. 

ferdinand von aegir feels broken but utterly free.

**Author's Note:**

> also: it occurs to me that everything i've posted here is ferdinand related??? i promise, i might write for other characters eventually. maybe XD
> 
> seven of the eight works i have here were written for my blog, @ferdinands-love-club, which has a lot of great reblogged art and general appreciation for ferdinand on it if you wanna check it out on tumblr!!


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